Nonparental Child Care

Non-Parental Child Care

In today's society we are seeing more and more non-parental child care taking place. There are many different types of child care options available to parents. We will discuss three different types of non-parental child care and their impact on a child's psychological, social and cognitive development.

The three types of non-parental child care are child-care centers, family day-care homes, and in-home care. Each one has its own effects on a child's psychological, social and cognitive development.

First, we will look at child-care centers in detail. "The National Association for the Education of Young Children developed an accreditation system for child-care centers involving self-evaluations by staff and parents" (Berns, 2010). The accreditation standard criteria which is based on research and professional consensus, includes staff qualifications and training, administration and staffing patterns, physical environment, health and safety, and nutrition and food service. Child-care centers are typically the ones who hold the largest adult per child ration.

Second, we will look at family day-care homes in detail. Beginning in 1988, "the National Association for Family Day Care began a program for voluntary accreditation of family child-care homes" (Berns, 2010). This accreditation includes a self-evaluation as well as external validation of aspects of program operations which includes health and safety, nutrition, indoor and outdoor play environments, interactions, and professional responsibility. Another requirement of this accreditation is cardiopulmonary resuscitation training. This type of child-care also takes place outside of the child's home environment.

Last, we will look at in-home care in detail. These caregivers come to the child's home in order to take care of them. This type of child-care offers the smallest adult to child ratio as it normally only consists of the number of children in the household. A prime example of a nanny would be the infamous Mary Poppins. Nannies as they are called can either be live-in or live-out depending on the type of child-care hours required.

Now we will look at the psychological effects of non-parental child care. There have been many different studies that have taken place in order to find out the relationship between the mother and child and the child's psychological development. The most recent study by "Jay Belsky in 1988, showed that babies less than one year old who receive non-parental care for more than twenty hours a week are at a greater risk of developing insecure attachments to their mothers. These children are also shown to have an increased risk of emotional and behavioral problems in later childhood" (Berns, 2010). Non-parental child care has been to blame for insecure children later in life along with insecure attachments to their